Just A Poor 4-1 Win

Portsmouth 1 - Manchester United 4
Scorers
Portsmouth: Boateng (pen 32)
Manchester United: Rooney (pen 25, 48, pen 54), Giggs (87)

Team: Kuszczak, Brown, Vidic, Neville, Evra, Fletcher, Carrick (Anderson 76), Scholes, Valencia, Giggs, Rooney

Don't let the scoreline fool you. I thought we were absolutely terrible for most of the game. Good goalkeeping from Kuszczak kept us alive in the early stages of the game, before Rooney was fouled in the penalty area. Rooney stepped up and scored from the spot giving us a shortlived goal advantage.

Ferguson watched the game from the stands, a punishment for his recent outburst against the referees. And true to the mark, the referee of the day, Mike Dean, proved just what Ferguson was on about. He awarded a penalty for the home team that left everyone scratching their collective heads. No one knew exactly at that point in time what the fuck the penalty was for. Not the players, not the commentators (both the English and Chinese ones) and definitely not me. It was an abysmal decision and Mike Dean is a lucky lucky man that the decision did not have a deeper impact on the game other than adding more fuel to fire the disgruntle feelings towards the modern day referee.

Boateng levelled the score from the spot, while we struggled to gain a foothold on the game.

The second half started on a brighter note and Rooney missed a glorious chance. On the subsequent attack, Giggs put him thru again, and this time he finished neatly giving us the lead for good.

Rooney completed his hattrick from the spot after the evergreen Giggs was fouled in the box. We were enjoying a good spell at this point, with Giggs, Valencia and Rooney playing particularly well.

Then we begun to relax and take the foot off the paddle, allowing Portsmouth room to come at us. Make no bones about it, Portsmouth is a limited team, but at the same time they are a desparate team. And they came at us with a ferocity of a caged animal. Good saves kept the scores respectable in our favour. Our midfield and defense was really at sixes and sevens for a good period.

Having weathered the storm, Giggs added salt into Pompey's wounds with a delightful freekick, rounding off the scoring for the day.

This was really a difficult game to watch. We weren't anywhere near our best, but we haven't really been up to our standards bar the odd game here and there. I feel there is something lacking in this squad, but I can't really put a finger on it. All that I know is that we're really not as good as we think we are.